Benjamin Marcum, 49, killed Thursday in Nashua
Archives For Alcoholism
Thomas Kennedy to face charges
MBTA police have made an arrest after a vicious attack on the Red Line in Boston.
Thomas Kennedy, 63, is facing assault charges after he was accused of punching, kicking and verbally attacking a student with cerebral palsy on Tuesday.
The victim was taken to Boston Medical Center for treatment.
Prosecutors said Kennedy was already out on bail after allegedly exposing himself in a different train station in January.
If he makes bail on the new charges, he will undergo alcohol and mental-health screenings.
Keith Rosiello charged in slaying of Maureen Rosiello
The trial of a Shrewsbury man charged with fatally beating his wife then not calling police until the next day has started.
Keith Rosiello’s first-degree murder trial started Thursday in Worcester Superior Court with opening statements by prosecutors and defense attorneys.
The prosecutor said the 49-year-old Rosiello killed Maureen Rosiello in February 2010 because their marriage was falling apart and he suspected her of cheating. The next day, before calling police, he allegedly told their two children and his sister to tell police his wife was the aggressor.
The Telegram & Gazette reports that the defense attorney told the jury his client was suffering from a mental disorder at the time of the killing and became delusional, a state exacerbated by substance abuse.
Testimony was expected to begin Friday.
Kim Kyung-hoon / Reuters, file
Retired U.S. basketball star Dennis Rodman
By Becky Bratu, Staff Writer, NBC News
Retired basketball star Dennis Rodman checked into an alcohol rehabilitation center to seek treatment for his long-time struggle with alcoholism, his agent said.
Dennis Prince declined to disclose which facility will treat the star.
“What was potentially a historic and monumental event turned into a nightmare for everyone concerned,” Prince said, according to The Associated Press. “Dennis Rodman came back from North Korea in pretty rough shape emotionally. The pressure that was put on him to be a combination ‘super human’ political figure and ‘fixer’ got the better of him.
“He is embarrassed, saddened and remorseful for the anger and hurt his words have caused.”
Rodman, 52, recently returned to the United States from yet another trip to North Korea, where he led an auditorium crowd in serenading the reclusive nation’s leader, Kim Jong Un, with “Happy Birthday” at an exhibition game between former NBA players and a North Korean team.
A day earlier, in a bizarre, expletive-littered and sometimes incoherent interview with CNN, Rodman came close to suggesting that an American held captive in North Korea for more than a year, Kenneth Bae, was responsible for his captivity.
Bae’s family was outraged, and Rodman was also slammed for not using his influence with Kim to help free the American.
Rodman ultimately apologized for his comments regarding Bae, saying he had been drinking and was upset because some of his teammates were leaving under pressure.
Rodman, known as much for his antics, tattoos and adventurous fashion choices as he was for basketball, won five NBA championships with the Detroit Pistons and Chicago Bulls.
The star was the highest-profile American to meet the North Korean leader since he inherited power from father Kim Jong Il in 2011. Rodman traveled to Pyongyang for the first time last February.
In November, the hoops star debuted “Dennis Rodman — The original Bad Ass Premium Vodka,” a “six times distilled all-American premium vodka.”
The endorsement was an unconventional choice for a star who has had issues with alcohol in the past, including getting arrested for driving drunk and assaulting his ex-fiancee. Rodman also entered an outpatient rehab facility in 2008. A year later, he agreed to appear on the third season of the show “Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew,” but he didn’t stay out of trouble.
In 2012, the Los Angeles Times detailed Rodman’s transgressions and legal issues and said the NBA Hall of Famer was broke and unable to get work.
“In all honesty, Dennis, although a very sweet person, is an alcoholic,” Peggy Williams, his then financial adviser, was quoted as saying. “His sickness impacts his ability to get work.”
Men who drink more than 2.5 drinks a day speed loss by 6 years, study says
BOSTON —A new British study finds middle-aged men who drink more than two-and-a-half alcoholic beverages a day may speed their memory loss by as many as six years.
Dr. James leverenz did not take part in the study but treats dementia at cleveland clinic and is the director at the lou ruvo center for brain health.
“This is what we call an association study. So, they see these associations, it’s not clear if these are cause and effect or just an association related to some other aspect that is common in these heavier drinking men,” said Dr. James Leverenz, of the Cleveland Clinic.
Researchers at University College London studied more than 5,000 men and nearly 2,100 women. Their average age was 56.
They found no differences in memory and executive function among men who did not drink, or drank less than two alcoholic beverages per day.
But heavy drinking men showed declines between one-and-a-half to six years faster than the light drinkers.
They did not find similar results in women; in fact, they found women who drank less saw more cognitive decline during the same period of time.
Researchers say previous research on the relationship between drinking and memory loss was done on older populations, not middle-aged people, so more studies are needed.
Levernez says the findings, if nothing else, remind us all to drink in moderation.
“I think it does argue that, perhaps, we should all be careful as we drink,” he said.
Complete findings for the study are available in the online issue of “Neurology.”
To find out which cities drink the most during the year, The Daily Beast analyzed the average number of drinks per month per adult and a city’s percentages of heavy and binge drinkers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Here are the 25 drunkest cities in America: Click here
Daily Happenings from poetsareangels 